This invention relates to a charged particle beam apparatus and in particular to a charged particle beam apparatus capable of contributing remarkably to the improvement of the precision of analysis in the secondary ion mass spectrometry.
This kind of prior art apparatuses detected secondary ions by means of a single mass spectrometer, and described in JP-B-52-21911, and it was difficult to detect simultaneously both positive and negative secondary ions. Further they were not provided with a successive observation function with high resolving power for a sample surface in a state, where it is progressively etched from one minute to the next.
Heretofore, since positive and negative ions were detected independently and both positive and negative ions emitted by a same origin were not detected simultaneously, it was difficult to identify the state of molecules or the state of compounds of the sample. Further it is known that the positive secondary ionization rate is high for electropositive elements and the negative secondary ionization rate is high for electronegative elements and in order to analyze all the elements with a high sensitivity, it is an inevitable analysis technique to detect simultaneously both positive and negative secondary ions, but there are known no prior art techniques for realizing it.
Further, heretofore, an optical microscope having a low resolving power was used for the observation of a domain to be analyzed. This method was insufficient for the observation of a submicron domain and the high precision positioning of the location to be analyzed. Further, for the analysis in the direction of the depth utilizing sputtering phenomena, it is important to take-out composite information of the observation of the sample surface and the result of the analysis and to effect overall characterization by monitoring continuously the etching shape and depth while observing successively the etched surface. It can be said that this is an inevitable technique particularly for the analysis of extremely small areas.
Furthermore, also for the microfabrication technique the selection of the location to be fabricated, the non-destructive and precise positioning method for the location to be fabricated, and the method for successive observation of the shape of fabrication are important, as described previously. There existed no prior art techniques, which can deal with such problems.